Following EA's delisting Ultima Underworld 1+2, Syndicate Plus, and Syndicate Wars on GOG.com, the company has shared a bit of an explanation as to why this happened and how the decision "didn't fully consider player's perspective."
For those unaware, these three games were removed from GOG.com per the "publisher's request" on June 28. While the titles would remain in the libraries of those who already purchased them, the games would be gone from the digital store for new purchase on that date.
This was met with a public outcry, and EA ended up changing course and announced on August 6 that the games would not only be returning to GOG, but that they would become free until September 3.
Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz, EA's executive vice president for marketing, commercial and positive play Chris Bruzzo talked about this controversial move and how it was a result of "a breakdown in the publisher's process for managing the digital titles it has on sale." He also reassured fans that procedures have changed to ensure this doesn't happen again.
"When making decisions that affect players we take the time to review exactly what the potential impacts are and whether they serve the player's best interests," Bruzzo said. "When we delisted Syndicate and Ultima Underworld we missed that step and so didn't fully consider the player's perspective.
"From the level of interest players showed in delisting these games, it was clear that people still wanted them to be available, so we did two things. The first was to ensure that going forward we have a process in place that considers the player perspective in listing decisions. The second was to relist the titles and make them available to as many people as possible with a month-long promotion."
He finished by saying that the team "saw so much love for these titles, more than twenty years after they originally launched we realised that we had to make them available again."
Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss made our list of the Top 10 Dungeon Crawlers of All Time, so it's great to hear more people will have the chance to try it out if they haven't yet.
Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to [email protected].
Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.
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For those unaware, these three games were removed from GOG.com per the "publisher's request" on June 28. While the titles would remain in the libraries of those who already purchased them, the games would be gone from the digital store for new purchase on that date.
This was met with a public outcry, and EA ended up changing course and announced on August 6 that the games would not only be returning to GOG, but that they would become free until September 3.
Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz, EA's executive vice president for marketing, commercial and positive play Chris Bruzzo talked about this controversial move and how it was a result of "a breakdown in the publisher's process for managing the digital titles it has on sale." He also reassured fans that procedures have changed to ensure this doesn't happen again.
"When making decisions that affect players we take the time to review exactly what the potential impacts are and whether they serve the player's best interests," Bruzzo said. "When we delisted Syndicate and Ultima Underworld we missed that step and so didn't fully consider the player's perspective.
"From the level of interest players showed in delisting these games, it was clear that people still wanted them to be available, so we did two things. The first was to ensure that going forward we have a process in place that considers the player perspective in listing decisions. The second was to relist the titles and make them available to as many people as possible with a month-long promotion."
He finished by saying that the team "saw so much love for these titles, more than twenty years after they originally launched we realised that we had to make them available again."
Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss made our list of the Top 10 Dungeon Crawlers of All Time, so it's great to hear more people will have the chance to try it out if they haven't yet.
Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to [email protected].
Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.
Continue reading...